129. Silver Key
Some robbers are stopping Ben & Bella. They are Mages too, but they're weak so Ben just uses his gravity magic to increase the gravity 5 times. The robbers can't even lift their fingers and Ben defeats them easily.
"Why bother robbing people with your measly strength?" asks Ben while tying the robbers with a rope.
"W-We don't have another choice, we need to fill our families' stomaches," says a robber.
"Hmm, what a classic reason," says Ben unfazed.
The robbers try to persuade Ben to release them using all kinds of reasons. But he doesn't budge and keep tying them and checking their belongings in return. Now he is the one who robs the robbers.
There's nothing that piqued Ben's interest among their stuff. They only have some money & pieces of jewelry that look cheap. But then, he finds a good item in one of the robber's pockets.
"A Silver Celestial Spirit key. Hmm, it's Nikora's key, a very common & cheap item. But it's still a free item, so I will take it," says Ben as he keeps the Silver Key.
Ben takes the robbers to authority and they are arrested. With this, the key owner's contract will also get nullified, so he can make a new contract with the Nikora.
"Bella, you will have a new friend after this," says Ben.
Bella is happy to hear that and she asks Ben to make the contract now. But Ben tells her to be patient as he will make the contract in the library. It's easy to make a contract with a Celestial Spirit, but he wants to do it in a quiet place.
After they arrived in the library, Ben activates the Silver Key immediately. Then a Nikora appears in front of him and Bella gets excited seeing it. She walks around the Celestial Spirit and looks at it curiously.
The Nikora has a blue color, wearing sunglasses and white headphones. It keeps whistling and tapping its feet while dancing around happily. Bella watches the Nikora curiously and follows its dance.
Ben raises an eyebrow & tilts his head seeing this strange Nikora. He never knows there's such a unique Celestial Spirit like this guy. But it's not that strange when he remembers that Celestial Spirits are living beings too, so they have different personalities & preferences.
"What's your name, little guy?" asks Ben.
"Puun, pu pu puun," says the Nikora with rapping beats.
Ben is dumbfounded hearing that and he doesn't understand anything that the spirit said.
"Sigh, let's make a contract so I can understand what you say," says Ben.
The Nikora stops its dance and nods to Ben before signing a contract. They agree to call the Nikora every Monday & Friday. Ben named it Gee because it reminds him of Bee from Naruto.
"Gee, your job is to play with Bella. I won't ask you to do difficult things, so just have fun," says Ben.
Gee nods before disappearing because it is Sunday now, not his contract day. Ben & Bella prepare their food and eat before resting. They will resume their activities tomorrow as it's almost night now.
The next day, Ben summons Gee and tells it to play with Bella as he starts his current daily activities. Ben makes 4 clones and gives them their usual tasks, except for Wrath. He orders Wrath to train Clone Magic while he scans the books again.
Ben scans the Fire Magic Books, Envy scans the Heat Magic Books, while Greed scans the Gravity Magic Books. Gluttony still trains the Teleportation Magic on the bottom floor with Wrath who trains Clone Magic.
There are tens of thousand books of each Fire Magic. It is one of the most popular magic since hundreds of years ago, after all. As for the Heat & Gravity, there are only a few thousand of them. It's a lot, but still very low compared to the Fire Magic Books.
Ben & his clones do their tasks every day it goes well. Their book scanning speed also increases slowly and they can scan 55 books a day after a month of stay in the Magic Library. It's just 5 books, but there are 3 individuals who scan the books, so it means 15 more books in a day.
Bella also keeps playing with Gee every Monday & Friday. But she is quite lonely on the other days even though she has a clone as a playmate. So Ben buys 6 more Nikoras' Celestial Spirit Keys.
He chooses Nikoras' keys because they are easy to find and cheap. Each key only sold for 20,000 Jewel, so 6 keys are 120,000. He buys 6 he can summon one every day for Bella's playmate.
Besides, Nikoras don't need a lot of MP because they are weak. They can't fight too, but it's not a problem because Ben doesn't need them to help him fight. Their task is just to be Bella's playmates.
All his 7 Nikoras have different colors. Their colors are Blue, White, Green, Yellow, Brown, Red, and Black. It's a coincidence that they have different colors because he can't choose them when buying the keys.
The 7 Nikoras also have different personalities, but they all are docile and hear him. Their names are Gee the Blue, Snow the White, Ueki the Green, Dio the Yellow, Choco the Brown, Akashi the Red, and Popo the Black.
They have different personalities, but they all are docile and always follow Ben's orders. All of them can be summoned 2 times a week. So Ben can call 2 Nikoras every day to be Bella's playmates.
Bella is very happy with her new playmates. She keeps playing with the Nikoras & her strict clone. She never trained her Clone Magic again after she could make a clone. But it's not a problem and Ben never asks her to train it again.
After 2 months in the library, Ben finally succeed to make his 5th Clone. Just like what he assumed, his clones are based on 7 Deadly Sins. The 5th Clone is Laziness and he always looks sleepy.
But Ben can tame him too and make him follow his order. The Laziness Clone was also tasked to scan the books. So now Ben can scan 4 times faster with 220 books a day.
Ben has almost scanned 10,000 books in these 2 months. Now with the 5th clone, his scanning speed will get even faster. But this speed isn't enough to reach his target to scan 100,000 books in these 6 months.
"I need something to enhance my scanning speed. Is there anything useful among Morgbitt's magic items?" asks Ben to AI Chip as he scrolls through the list in her database.
[There's none. But I have a suggestion for you. There is an item to increase reading speed, but I don't know if it can increase my scanning speed too.]
"It might be possible. If it raises my reading speed, then it is increasing my brain's processing speed too, right? With my brain working faster, you will also work faster," says Ben.
[That makes sense, so let's try it. The Magic Item's name is Gale-Force Reading Glasses.]
Ben nods and goes to Dawn City the next day. He goes to a Magic Item Shop and buys the glasses. It's the lowest variant with 2x reading speed because he just wants to test it.
The glasses worked and he is very excited by it, so he wants to buy the highest variant. But the shop doesn't have it and only has the 18x reading speed. Ben is disappointed, but he still buys it and returns to the library.
18x is good enough for him and he can learn the glasses to make it himself later. With 55 books per individual daily, 18x faster means each he & his clones can scan 990 books a day.
And with 4 individuals scanning the books, he can scan 3960 books every day. That means he can scan 475,200 books in the remaining 4 months or 120 days. That is 4 times more than his previous 100,000 targets.
"If I have the highest variant with 120x speed, then I will finish scanning every book in the library soon. Too bad they don't have it, but this is enough for now," says Ben as he leaves the shop.
He buys 8 glasses for him, his clones, and spares. Then Ben returns to the library with an excited face. He can't wait to see the result after he & his clones use them.
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You can read up to 30+ chapters ahead of this fanfic novel & the other one on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.
Clicking that power stone/like also seem to be a good choice, hehe.
I've uploaded:
1. Chapter 159 of Fairy Tail: Sun Eater
2. Chapter 170 of Transcended as Lord Buggy
https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain
(the web didn't use _underscore_, it's to avoid censorship)